October 2026 HPC Career News

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CARLA 2026: Latin America Looks Past Bigger Machines CARLA, the Latin American High Performance Computing Conference, came to Córdoba, Argentina, for the first... Once again, it is time for HPC Career Notes, our monthly feature that’s designed to keep you up-to-date on the latest career developments for individuals in the HPC community, including promotion, new company hires, and accolade. Check in each month for an updated list and you may even come across someone you know, or better yet, yourself! Nvidia’s Michael Garland and Google’s Nathan Bell were awarded the SC26 Test of Time Award for their SC09 presentation on sparse computing, which was based on their paper titled “Implementing Sparse Matrix-Vector Multiplication on Throughput-Oriented Processors.” Sparse matrix-vector multiplication is an important operation in computational science, as it appears repeatedly in methods for solving large-scale linear systems and eigenvalue problems across scientific and engineering applications. However, sparse matrices remain a challenge for parallel hardware, such as GPUs. Rather than treating all sparse matrices in the same way, Garland and Bell considered different sparsity patterns and the data formats best suited to them, which can reduce the execution and memory divergence caused by irregular matrix structures. Their results demonstrated that sparse computation can be mapped successfully onto GPU architectures. In their study, Garland and Bell showed that sparse matrices could be run with high levels of memory bandwidth utilization on the Nvidia GeForce GTX 285. Garland, who is currently is a senior director of programming research at Nvidia, will look back on the paper and the ensuing work in his SC26 presentation titled “Twenty Years of Sparsity on GPUs.” Caira Anderson, a doctoral student in the Center for Applied Mathematics at Cornell University, has completed a three-month graduate fellowship practicum at the Mathematics and Computer Science (MCS) division of Argonne National Laboratory studying computational methods and software for large-scale scientific simulation. Anderson, who is a recipient of a DOE Computational Science Graduate Fellowship (CSGF), chose Argonne for her practicum because of its strength in applied mathematics, scientific computing, and HPC software “MCS is a natural fit for my interests in numerical methods and scientific software,” Anderson said. “I was excited by the chance to learn how solver methods are developed, tested, and used in large-scale scientific computing applications.” Anderson’s thesis work focuses on numerical methods for the linear ideal magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) eigenvalue problem, which is used to study the stability of plasma equilibria in application areas such as fusion energy, per Gail Piper’s writeup on the Argonne site. During her practicum, Anderson studied the performance of a fully implicit Runge–Kutta (IRK) time-stepping method implemented in PETSc, Argonne’s suite of software for scientific computing. While she focused on numerical methods and scientific computing, Anderson also has been exploring AI tools, such as Claude. “For this kind of work, AI can be useful as a coding and reasoning aid, but I feel it is still important to understand the mathematical formulation, verify the implementation and test the results carefully,” she said. “In my experience, AI tools are most useful when they support that process rather than replace it.” Wei Jia Ong, a staff scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), was named a 2026 recipient of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science Early Career Research Program award. With support from the award, Ong will pursue an integrated approach to understanding the origins of p-nuclei, a type of stable nuclei with an excess of protons. “P-nuclei are extremely interesting because they cannot be made by neutron-capture reactions, which is how more than 99% of stable nuclei are made in stars,” she said, according to a story by LLNL’s Ashley Piccone on the LLNL website. While scientists approximately understand the mechanisms behind neutron capture and the formation of neutron-rich isotopes, how and where p-nuclei are made is still a topic of contention. The Early Career Research Program provides five-year awards to exceptional early-career researchers at U.S. academic institutions, National Laboratories, and Office of Science User Facilities to stimulate new research directions in mission critical areas supported by DOE’s Office of Science. “Winning this award is an incredible honor, and I have to thank the vast number of colleagues who helped me develop the ideas and improve the proposal,” said Ong. “I can’t wait to see what we find!” HPC software developer Parallel Works made several personnel moves in the past month, including the promotions of Michael McQuade to VP of engineering, Matt Long to lead mission engineering, and Quan Nguyen to director of engineering. As VP of engineering, McQuade will lead the continued development and advancement of Parallel Works Activate platform. McQuade has helped develop that product as director of engineering. As director of mission engineering, Long will oversee the teams that deploy, operate, and support customer HPC and AI environments. He will focus on strengthening customer engagement, optimizing infrastructure performance and ensuring organizations can reliably execute demanding computational workloads. Nguyen, meanwhile, will help to lead development of the Activate platform as the eirector of engineering. Previously, he served as engineering team lead. “Most HPC and AI projects don’t stall because the hardware isn’t there,” said Matthew Shaxted, CEO of Parallel Works. “They stall because no one owns the integration, the tuning and unexpected failures. That’s what mission engineering is for, and it’s why we’re putting experienced leaders in charge of it. “Michael, Matt and Quan have dedicated years to helping researchers and engineers overcome complex HPC and AI challenges with world-class solutions,” Shaxted continued. “These promotions position them to expand that impact, bringing their expertise and innovative approaches to an even broader range of customers.” Storage software provider Hammerspace has appointed John McKillop, a sales executive with a quarter of a century experience in tech sales, to the position of vice president of Americas sales. McKillop previously was the senior vice president of global sales and senior vice president of Americas sales at storage vendor Quantum. Prior to that, he was chief revenue officer at Openprise, where he helped helping enterprises optimize go-to-market operations through data orchestration, automation and AI. “What attracted me to Hammerspace is the combination of differentiated technology, an exceptional team and the momentum already underway,” McKillop said. “The market opportunity is enormous, and Hammerspace is uniquely positioned to capture it. My focus is on accelerating that growth by scaling our sales organization, expanding our strategic partnerships and helping more customers realize the value of AI anywhere.” “We’ve experienced phenomenal growth this year,” said Hammerspace is excited to bring McKillop on board, said Hammerspace’s Chief Business Officer Tony Asaro. “He has a great track record of success, scaling sales organizations and building the partnerships needed to turn market leadership into sustained revenue growth,” he said. Wahid Bhimji and Shashank Subramanian, two members of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC)’s Real-Time Synchrotron Imaging Analysis Team, have received the at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Director’s Awards for exceptional achievements in science. Bhimji and Subramanian received the Director’s Award “for foundational work building the Advanced Light Source (ALS) imaging superfacility, culminating in the delivery of real-time, AI-driven analysis of microtomography experiments leveraging DOE’s high-performance networks and computing infrastructure,” LBNL said in a press release. According to LBNL, the collaboration between ALS and NERSC has “dramatically accelerated” and improved the process where massive amounts of data captured at the ALS are analyzed at NERSC and returned to ALS researchers in near-real time. The lab says that its success could also pave the way for similar integration between experimental facilities and HPC resources underpinning the U.S. Department of Energy’s Genesis Mission project, particularly its American Science Cloud initiative. “It’s a great honor to receive this award; it’s the culmination of the work of many people across NERSC and ALS, over many years, to enable real-time HPC workflows for science,” said Bhimji. “These approaches now form the foundation of efforts in the American Science Cloud and Genesis Mission which could further enable transformative science in the coming years.” Sandia National Laboratories recently announced that Rehka Rao is the first employee to receive dual fellowships, including for the Society of Rheology and the International Association for Computational Mechanics. She is the first Sandia employee to ever be elected a fellow of the IACM. She also served as the first female president of the U.S. Association for Computational Mechanics, Sandia tells us in a press release. Rao accepted her IACM fellowship at the World Congress on Computational Mechanics in Munich, Germany, which brought 5,000 researchers together from around the world in July. “Being the first Sandia fellow at IACM and getting international recognition was just really amazing,” Rao said. “Especially because this is not only for my service but also for my technical achievements.” Rao will receive her fellowship recognition from the Society of Rheology in late October. Rao discovered her passion for research and problem-solving during her undergraduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She has spent her entire career at Sandia, having joined in 1990 with a doctorate in chemical engineering, specializing in computational fluid dynamics. After starting out in nuclear waste disposal, she moved to engineering sciences. Much of her career has focused on deterrence work, including the B-61 nuclear bomb. “Every time they build a new encapsulated part, they will run the models to make sure the molds fill well with minimal defects,” Rao said. “You have specific foam parts that need to be high-quality structural supports. We have developed multiphysics models to understand the fluid flow, solidification, and aging. Electronic components are encapsulated, so the foam must survive drop or bumps. These models help do that.” Zapata Quantum has appointed Peter Shor and other notable scientists to its Scientific Advisory Board (SAB). Shor is the MIT mathematician whose landmark 1994 algorithm, now known as Shor’s algorithm, showed how quantum computers could solve a major computational problem far faster than the best-known classical methods, helping launch the modern field of quantum computing. “Quantum computers will only be as useful as the applications we run on them. As hardware matures toward fault tolerance, it’s critical that we discover and develop new algorithms to truly unlock the power of this new technology,” said Dr. Shor. “I’m excited about the work Zapata is doing in this area and look forward to helping guide those efforts.” In addition to Dr. Shor, other distinguished scientists joining the SAB include Alexandru Paler, Associate Professor of Computer Science at Aalto University in Finland; Simon Devitt, Professor and Director of the Centre for Quantum Software and Information (QSI) at the University of Technology, Sydney; and Artur Izmaylov, Professor of Theoretical and Computational Chemistry at the University of Toronto. “Dr. Shor’s work is the reason this entire field exists,” said Sumit Kapur, CEO of Zapata Quantum. “His discovery of quantum algorithmic advantage is the foundational proof point the industry has been built upon, and having his guidance regarding our scientific direction is strong validation of our approach.” Supermicro appointed seasoned finance executive Mark Long as senior vice president and chief financial officer. Long will report directly to the computer maker’s CEO, Charles Liang. Long has more than three decades of experience across the technology sector, including a stint at Western Digital, where he led financial management, investor relations and corporate strategy as CFO and chief strategy officer. He also served as co-founder and partner of Prime Impact Capital, a technology-focused investment firm. Long also was a senior vice president of strategy and corporate development at Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. “I am honored to join Supermicro as it continues to build on its leadership in AI and high-performance infrastructure,” Long said. “Charles has built a remarkable company, and I look forward to partnering closely with him and the executive team to scale the business effectively and efficiently – strengthening our financial foundation while supporting continued innovation, growth, and long-term value creation for shareholders.” Florida State University Professor of Computer Science Weikuan Yu will serve as a director within the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure at the National Science Foundation (NSF). NSF program director for at least one year starting in Fall 2026. In the role, Yu collaborate with researchers and other program directors to help manage NSF programs and oversee federal research investments related to his expertise in AI, powerful computing systems, large-scale data management and computing infrastructure. Yu joined FSU’s Department of Computer Science in 2015 and has served as associate chair for research and held the Mainline Information Systems Endowed Professorship. He also led the Department of Computer Science as chair for three years. “It’s a great honor to represent FSU at the national level and contribute to federal investments in advanced cyberinfrastructure and national AI research resources,” Yu said. “This opportunity comes at an especially exciting time, as AI is rapidly reshaping science, technology and society. The role gives me an opportunity to step back and look more broadly at where our research community is heading, particularly how national computing, AI and data infrastructure can enable scientific discovery and serve the larger research community.” Terry Benzel was voted as IEEE Computer Society’s 2028 president, the group announced recently. Benzel is the managing director of the Information Sciences Institute (ISI) at the University of Southern California and an IEEE Fellow recognized for leadership in cybersecurity experimentation. A long-time IEEE CS volunteer, Benzel has contributed through conferences, publications, technical communities, governance, and strategic initiatives, the group says. In addition to being the society’s current vice president, she represents the society on the multi-society CLEAR (Community-Led Ethics for Accountability in Research) Task Force and leads the society’s Ethics and Integrity initiative. An IEEE Fellow, Benzel has received numerous IEEE CS honors, including the Golden Core Recognition, Outstanding Service Award, Outstanding Community Service Award, and Continuing Service Award. Benzel garnered 2,539 votes, compared with 1,305 votes cast for Saurabh Bagchi, a professor at Purdue University, and chair of its computer engineering division whose research contributions lie in reliable and secure computing and co-founder of startup KeyByte LLC. The Department of Energy announced nine recipients of the prestigious Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award for their exceptional contributions to research and development supporting the department’s missions in science, energy, and national security. Ernest Orlando Lawrence was a Berkeley Lab scientist who won the 1939 Nobel Prize in Physics for his invention of the cyclotron. “From achieving fusion ignition to advancing critical materials and high-performance computing, these scientists and engineers are tackling some of our nation’s most complex challenges and translating groundbreaking research into real-world capabilities,” said Secretary of Energy Chris Wright. “Their work strengthens our nation’s energy security, drives American innovation, and ensures the United States remains at the forefront of scientific discovery.” The winners include: DOE will honor the recipients at a hybrid award ceremony in Washington, D.C., on November 13, 2026. The ceremony will be broadcast live online. You can read last month’s Career Notes here.